The Barbados Aquatic Sports Association (BASA) has once again been dealt another major setback with the postponement of the 2021 CARIFTA Championship which was scheduled for March 26th to April 7th at the National Aquatic Centre.
This is the second consecutive year that Barbados was supposed to host the event and it has been postponed because of the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19).
BASA president Lady Cheryl Forde confirmed in a press release about the postponement and said a decision was made in response to the COVID-19 situation in Barbados and the region. She also explained that a new date will be set after the BASA executive meets with the COVID-19 monitoring unit in February and after a thorough review of updated protocols in the region is assessed.
“The postponement is unfortunate but safety is our top priority and we will take the necessary actions to protect the health and safety of everyone involved in competing and in the running of the meet.
BASA president Lady Cheryl Forde (left) will not be awarding any medals in April as the CARIFTA swimming championship is off. (FP)
“We have informed our regional federations and we will work closely with them to monitor developments and to decide on a suitable alternate date,” Forde said in the press release.
During an interview with Barbados TODAY, Forde noted that even though they would suffer financial loss from the postponement, safety and health were of the utmost importance.
“Whenever we have to cancel there is a cost attached to it. But it is a balancing act, you have to weigh the cost of safety and health as opposed to dollars. It is a little more challenging for us to look at other ways to raise funds and so forth and try to keep our membership contribution going. It is difficult but also quite necessary given the situation with COVID at this time,” Forde explained.
Besides CARIFTA, the Long Course Nationals scheduled for March 2nd to 7th and Aquatic Centre International May 28th to 30th are also in jeopardy of not taking place.
As it relates to the Olympics this year, Forde said that BASA will as they have always done support national swimmers.
“Those swimmers who are hoping to go to the Olympics, most of them are training overseas at present. They pretty much do whatever their universities are doing at this time.
“In terms of our involvement, once a decision is made on the Olympics, they would get the support from our federation as normal. But it is something we cannot say too much at this stage because that itself is still up in the air.
“There is a lot of optimism in certain areas and there are also those who think that it may not come off. But regardless we definitely support our overseas swimmers and all those who are trying to make the qualifying times,” Forde said.
With the agreement of all the regional federations, Forde explained that they have decided for the first time to allow for CARIFTA which is an age-group competition, to have an 18 and over category. This would have allowed those who wanted to qualify for the Olympics to do so.
She added: “CARIFTA has been sanctioned as an Olympic qualifying meet but I am not sure what is going to happen in terms of our reschedule. It is too early to set a date and of course, there are cut-off dates to qualify.
“We also have the long course nationals and the aquatic centre internationals and those two meets obviously would be impacted by whatever decisions are made about CARIFTA.
“This is a request that came primarily from others in the region because they don’t have meets at this time of the year that would allow them to qualify. And they would have been travelling to the States and so on to do that. So, this has been a setback in more ways than one.”
The pool is still in operation at the moment but Forde assured that once they get over this two-weeks closure, they will meet again and try to determine exactly how they can go forward with training.
“Kids train and they train for something and therefore at this time they would have been training with long course nationals in mind. But because of the situation, we have to juggle things around and perhaps have them training for a longer period because we have to adjust the dates for those meets. It is a bit premature to say when those meets will take place because it all depends on what happens after the lockdown.
“We encourage the kids to swim when they can and to do land training and do all the necessary things to stay fit. Watch their diet and not sit in front of the television. It is very challenging not only for the kids but also for the coaches as well. They have to be chopping and changing their program in order to produce a proper training schedule,” Forde said.
She added: “The most important thing for us is keeping safe and healthy and we work together to get over this. Sometimes it gives us an opportunity to look at things differently and come up with other ways of doing things.”
morissalindsay@barbadostoday.bb
